Championship club Sunderland are set to sign free agent Aaron Connolly and allow him to revive his career

The Galway native was released by Hull City at the end of last season and although he was linked with a few clubs, including Celtic, and a return to Hull was also mooted at one point, the new season has started with Connolly remaining a free agent.

Sunderland have expressed an interest and a transfer is expected to be finalised in the coming days, a deal which will see him link up with international team-mate Alan Browne.

The Black Cats have started the new season in fine form under Regis Le Bris. Despite a setback with a defeat to Plymouth, they responded with a home win over Middlesbrough last weekend to remain in the top two of the Championship table.

Aged just 24, Connolly will still have something to prove with Sunderland after some difficult spells in his career. Starting at Brighton, where he culminated in a brace in a 3-0 Premier League win over Tottenham in 2019, he had ill-fated spells on loan at Middlesbrough and Venezia before a move to Hull, first on loan and then permanently, saw him regain his confidence, scoring eight goals in 30 games last season.

Connolly’s international career has also been marked by trials. Having made his senior debut under Mick McCarthy in 2019, he has struggled to establish himself and has been demoted to the Under-21s on a couple of occasions, while a substitute appearance in a Euro qualifying defeat to France in Paris last year was his only senior cap in the last three years.

Speaking to the Irish Independent last year, the Galway man admitted he had taken a few wrong turns in his career and had sometimes been held back by his own attitude.

“It’s a case of me growing up, I was young when I started playing in the best league in the world, the league I had always grown up talking to people about playing in, even wanting to play a game in the Premier League.

“And I got carried away by the situation I was in. I was young and I wasn’t used to that kind of attention or spotlight on me. It was like a big pressure cooker playing Premier League football every week,” he said.

“The lifestyle I lead now is another reason why I play well and enjoy my football. I am surrounded by people who care about me as a person, not just as a footballer.

“You hear so many stories about people hanging out with the wrong people, being friendly with people you think are your friends but aren’t. You can get so distracted by that. It’s hard to trust people because you don’t know their intentions. Do they really care about you as a person or is it just what you can provide them?”

“Once I stepped away, I had six months without that, I came to Hull and people started to see that this was the real me, the player they thought they had four or five years ago. It just took a while for that player to reveal himself.

“When I was younger, with Brighton U23s, I could afford not to be as professional as I should have been. You get caught out. If you’re not up to par in everything, Monday to Friday, in the way you live your life off the pitch. If you have a problem like that in your life and you try to play against a Van Dijk or a John Stones, you’ll get found out. You don’t stay at that level for very long and I didn’t appreciate that at the time.”